


Cold Earth, Cold Body

by Il-Papa-Patata (Emby_M)



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Catharsis, Ghost is Ghosts AU, Gravedigging, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mary Goore is Special Ghoul AU, mentioned Mary/Papa III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27671567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emby_M/pseuds/Il-Papa-Patata
Summary: “Ha,” Mary barks, moving further in, back into the corner of the building – the factory, Swiss thinks – to a spot on the concrete.Now, here, it doesn’t look like much. Just kind of a brownish smudge. But Mary is pointing with his not-grin and so Swiss ventures-“Blood?”Mary nods, his grin breaking uneven, pointing to himself.“Oh,” Swiss says.-Mary visits a familiar place while they’re on tour. Swiss comes along as moral support.
Relationships: Mary Goore/Swiss Ghoul
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Cold Earth, Cold Body

**Author's Note:**

> For more info about the Ghost is Ghosts AU, feel free to ask or stop by my tumblr. Basically the ghouls and most people in the clergy have all died at least once and been revived through the ~power of Satan~.

It’s just a little… detour.

Imperator packed the schedule tight around the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria-

But…

There’s some time, anyway. Just a day here.

Swiss follows behind as Mary weaves his way easy through trees, breath harsh in the winter air. The new winter coat – the Ghouls’ standard wool coat with the black-fur collar – flares behind him as he moves, hanging open over his chest.

Swiss says nothing. There’s no space to – there’s a gnarl of trees, then a brief lash of fence; they aren’t hurrying but Mary moves brisk and quick.

There’s nothing to say. And Mary’s been quiet since they stepped off the train and into that station – an old thing, not as old as Swiss but older than Mary. There’s just. A tension.

Swiss knows why, of course, but it’s not easier that he knows, and he’s really just coming along to help out, although he feels like maybe it shouldn’t be him, but Terzo along for this because he and Mary are made of the same stuff and understood each other better anyway-

Swiss focuses again.

Mary stops, teetering in his tracks.

“Ah.”

It’s- well, it was a sturdy building at some point. Maybe. Swiss isn’t sure, but Mary is, the way his mouth twists into something that’s supposed to be a grin but fails to be.

It’s this yard – surrounded by an old wrought-iron fence with a chain-link behind it, taller than Swiss. And then – walls, although there are more holes in them than there are walls, marks of graffiti and rubble and the roof all caving in.

Mary is scrambling up the fence before Swiss can think, and then he has to clamber up as well, landing on the other side of the tall fence with a heavy _thud_. And Mary again is not going slow, but he isn’t rushing either, drawn forward by some invisible thread, a line that he follows like a bloodhound after a scent-

They venture inside. Here- rows and rows of old machinery, chairs thrown about haphazardly, some stacked in a pile – Mary moves past them all. There’s signs of urbex around, which he thinks is fair – tags and ill-moved furniture and things with dust smeared off them in uneven clumps – but it isn’t what Mary is after.

There’s this area – solid holes punched in the roof that let in the thin, wintry daylight, but a surprisingly empty floor, all smooth, crack-your-head concrete.

“Ha,” Mary barks, moving further in, back into the corner of the building – the factory, Swiss thinks – to a spot on the concrete.

Now, here, it doesn’t look like much. Just kind of a brownish smudge. But Mary is pointing with his not-grin and so Swiss ventures-

“Blood?”

Mary nods, his grin breaking uneven, pointing to himself.

“Oh,” Swiss says, as Mary sits down and lies out on the cold concrete, adjusting himself minutely until the blood form a halo around his head. And then almost proudly, in the way a child might celebrate first tying their shoes, Mary throws his arms out and kicks his feet up.

Swiss can’t really find it all that funny.

Mary repeats the unfurling another two times, each a little more impatient, before he lies back fully, going limp against the floor, wet in places where it snowed recently. The sun shines through onto Mary’s face – he turns his head away, hand limp on his stomach, almost-

And then turns back, looking up at Swiss and laughing, rolling back up to sitting, every part of him jagged and fragile at the same time.

Swiss takes his hands when Mary wiggles them and helps him up, only letting go once he’s squeezed them gently, reminding Mary he’s here too. Mary’s weird grin falters.

He laces their fingers. Sways close to Swiss, rests his head on Swiss’s shoulder.

So they breathe for a moment, in the wintry air, Mary’s other hand fiddling with the buttons of Swiss’s coat. Mary’s hand wanders, stroking up along the seam of the coat-front, into the plush collar, up to stroke Swiss’s face gently.

Mary’s hands are cold, but Swiss leans into it, looking down at the ferocious man now looking up at him with quiet – but unflinching – warmth.

Swiss kisses him. Just gently. A press of his lips to Mary’s, just warm, Mary’s breath fanning out along his cheek as they readjust and kiss again.

Mary sighs.

Turns, and heads towards one of the holes punched in the walls, but doesn’t let go of Swiss’s hand, pulling him along.

They wander the grounds a bit – there’s the start of a forest behind the building, with old elms and pines intermingled. There’s clumps of snow around, albeit not that many. Most of it’s melted. The sun’s warm despite the temperature, but Mary’s ungloved hands are colder and colder.

Swiss wonders if he feels cold the same way, like a sunburn on the back of the neck, brilliant and bright. Swiss thinks many things were different after he died, but he can’t really remember how he was before his death. He remembers his sister – remembers his carpentry, can still do everything he did when he was alive, still remembers watching over the neighborhood kids but-

He doesn’t remember falling sick. He doesn’t remember lingering as his skin blackened and swelled, until his body was consumed – he can look at his skin, blistered with the markings of where the buboes sat, and know it happened, but he can’t remember a moment of it.

He doesn’t remember dying, although it definitely happened.

Mary stops. Grips his hand tight.

At first, Swiss doesn’t know what he looks at. There’s a sort of depression in the earth, although it’s not that noticeable.

But then Mary lets go of his hand and picks up a stone sitting by the dip in the earth.

“Ha,” Mary says again, “Ha- hahaha!”

Mary laughs. Mary laughs and laughs.

It’s sharp and barking, but not the way his laugh normally is. This is different. This is worse.

It sounds like he’s choking, the laughter worming its way around the usual rasp in his lungs, half-cough.

And then it forgets to be laughter at all. And Mary starts to sob.

Mary clutches the stone to his chest, sobbing and sobbing, heart-rending hiccups and inhuman keening, his usually sharp face crumpling.

Swiss is there. Pulling Mary into his chest, steadying the man. Running his hands down Mary’s back, tucking his head into his shoulder.

It takes a little bit. The two of them in this old factory yard, on the edge of this deep forest. The factory is old and broken, but the forest old and whole, still thriving – perhaps like them. Mary just sobs, looks at the stone occasionally, his tears restarting. But eventually he stops, taking deep lungfuls of winter air and wiping at his tear-striped, blotchy face with his cold hands.

“You okay?” Swiss murmurs, reaching up to cup Mary’s cheek, stroke at his sideburn.

“Ha,” Mary hiccups, face smeared with eyeliner, “Ha, yeah, I’m okay now. Thanks.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Mary sighs out another deep breath. Looks up at Swiss. Then down at the stone.

“You remember how I told you I died? How I had TB and my friends – my comrades, who I didn’t think liked me that much – ha – ended up burying me?”

“Yeah.”

“It was here.”

“I guessed.”

“That brown spot was – I think now they’d call it a lung hemorrhage. I drowned in my own blood while I was sleeping,” Mary laughs, just once, “Fuckin’ awful way to go.”

“You remember it?”

“Yeah. Every second. Thinking how unfair it all was. How much I’d miss. How of course I was gonna die from the thing that killed my family but I couldn’t have the dignity of dying with them.”

Swiss just strokes Mary’s temple again, hums.

“My- friend, Esther. The one I was in love with. She’d tried to sing me to sleep. And she- when she thought I was asleep she told me she loved me, but why would I believe-”

Mary stops. Lifts the stone and settles it into Swiss’s hands.

In a brief, but beautiful handwriting, worn with age but still marked on the stone –

_Mary Goore. 1863-1890. Our dearest friend and the one who gave us our name – the Repugnants. We lost today what can never be replaced. May his memory be a blessing._

“I spent-” Mary warbles, resting a hand on his throat, “So much time so sure… I crawled out of this grave and I was consumed with the need to go to Italy, to meet Copia, to- to start over. To find purpose. What else had I come back for but that? I was so sure that they all just moved on after I died, that they didn’t care. Like they were burying a stray dog.”

Mary holds out his hands for the stone, and Swiss hands it back to him.

Mary sets the stone back down by the impression – no, the grave, worn down and made natural by 130 years of weather, and turns back to Swiss, coming over to him and kissing him again.

This is different.

They’d been together a long time. Swiss was quite proud to feel like – like yes, he understood Mary, and he could get at the man’s depths, and they could meld together-

But this is different.

Mary’s mouth is warm, and his hands are covered in grave dirt, and when they pull back for air, Mary’s eyes are electric, even surrounded by washed-away eyeliner.

Mary smiles.

“Whoa,” Swiss says, pulling Mary close by the waist and kissing him again, a bright thing, “That’s a lethal smile, sweetheart. Gonna knock me out over here.”

“Shut up,” Mary sighs, leaning up and lacing his arms around Swiss’s neck, kissing him again.

The whole jagged line of Mary is finally – relaxed. One hundred thirty years of them knowing each other and Mary is loose and pliable and molding up along the curve of Swiss’s chest, and Swiss is pulling him closer and groans when Mary _sags_ into him.

“Hehe,” Mary giggles, nipping at Swiss’s lower lip.

“Hehe,” Swiss replies.

“I wanna fuck,” Mary murmurs.

“Here?” Swiss darts his eyes to the old grave, to the winter-bare trees, to the plumes of mist that haze around their mouths.

Mary also seems to realize this, cheeks fading into a pretty pink.

“You don’t want to fuck a dead man? Engage in some necrophilia?”

“Is it necrophilia if both parties are dead though?”

Mary’s brow furrows and he focuses on one of the buttons of Swiss’s coat, pulling back a bit. “Hm. Is it? Legally?”

“Might be. Laws are weird about us.”

“Damn, ain’t that true.” Mary settles back, his cold hands on Swiss’s cheeks. “We’ll make some bureaucrat hard with this write-up then. Once we get back. It’s cold.”

Swiss just chuckles, clutching Mary close again and kissing him some more.


End file.
